Environment editor, The Age

The carbon tax may be all but dead, but a global plan for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change has found Australia could overhaul its fossil fuel dependent energy supply and cut emissions to zero by 2050 without trashing its economy.

The project is being carried out by researchers in 15 countries and lead by globally renowned economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs, with an interim report delivered to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon overnight on Tuesday.

It plots specific measures for the world’s 15 largest economies, including China, India and the US, to cut their emissions quickly and deeply enough to meet an international agreed goal of limiting warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Modelling for the Australian section found it was technically possible for the country to cut its emissions to zero by 2050. It found gross domestic product would still grow by an average 2.4 per cent a year over the same period.

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Dr Frank Jotzo, an economist from the Australian National University and one of the authors of the Australia section of the report, said the project detailed what a low-carbon future for Australia would look like.

He said the work showed it was technically possible, but to get there major structural changes had to get under way soon.

‘‘A really low emissions future is not a pipe dream,’’ Dr Jotzo said.

‘‘It is possible in Australia and it is also possible in fast growing developing countries including China and India.’’

The report finds that if Australian emissions were zero in 2050 almost all of electricity would be generated from renewable technologies, with some off-grid gas power used in remote locations.

That would lead to a 95 per cent decline in the emissions intensity of the electricity produced. Similar results could be achieved if some carbon capture and storage or nuclear power was added to the mix.

In other parts of the economy emissions could not be cut completely without radical new technology, which was not considered. This applied to transport, agriculture and some heavy industry.

To make up the shortfall the project finds Australia would increase the amount of carbon that is stored in the landscape to offset continued emissions from some sectors. That would be done by planting more trees and changing soil tilling practices.

Emissions from industry would fall 60 per cent as it became more energy efficient, some processes were electrified and there was a shift from coal to gas, biomass and carbon, capture and storage.

Building emissions would fall 95 per cent as commercial and residential owners cut power use and switch to renewable energy rather than using gas for heating.

The UN and the authors hoped the project – known as Deep Decarbonisation Pathways – would build momentum towards international negotiations for a new global climate change treaty that is due to be finalised at a meeting in Paris next year and come into effect from 2020.

When Professor Sachs visited Australia in May he told Fairfax Media the Paris meeting would be the last chance for the planet to keep warming to two degrees.

The interim report did not look at the costs and benefits of the major changes that are outlined for all 15 countries, but that is expected to be dealt with in the final report, which will be handed to Mr Ban at a special world leaders' meeting on climate change in New York in September.